Meningitis B jab to be rolled out for all newborns next month… but older kids miss out

All newborn babies are to get a meningitis B vaccine for free from next month – but thousands of older children will still miss out on the lifesaving jab.

The vaccine is being rolled out from October 1st after a campaign by the Irish Daily Mail to ensure it is given out for free.

And while ministers have agreed that all newborns should get the vaccine, there is now pressure to ensure that a catch-up programme is launched to ensure that older children – some of whom may miss the deadline by a day – are not left unprotected.

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Ireland has the highest incidence of meningitis in Europe, with the latest statistics from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) showing there were four deaths from the disease here in 2014.

There are up to 200 cases of meningitis recorded in Ireland every year. Up until now there has been no vaccine in the State vaccination schedule to protect against meningitis B.

A vaccine was licensed by the EU in January 2013 and it has been available privately here since December 2013 but there are high costs involved (€130-180 per dose plus the fees for the GP/ nurse to administer it) and there were stock shortages until June of this year.

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Adding to the cost is the fact that three separate doses are required, meaning the total bill for having it privately can cost than €400.

Children require between two and four doses to be fully protected.

Parenting group Mummypages.ie and the Meningitis Research Foundation both expressed concern that the programme was being limited to newborns, with no catchup programme for the rest of the country’s children.

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This is despite the fact that young children are most at risk of contracting the meningitis B strain, with 58% of all cases in 2014 found in children under the age of five. A spokesman for the Minister for Health said that there were ‘currently no plans’ to extend the scheme to older infants.

A spokesman for the HSE, which is in charge of administering the vaccines to babies, said: ‘The HSE has received additional funding for 2016 to include Meningococcal B (MenB) and Rotavirus vaccines in the Primary Childhood Immunisation Programme. The HSE proposes introducing these vaccines for all babies born on or after 1 October 2016.’

Laura Erskine of Mummypages.ie previously campaigned to have the vaccine introduced and now she is calling for the vaccination programme to be rolled out to more children.’MummyPages is delighted that the public pressure to introduce the meningitis B vaccine last February finally produced confirmation from sitting Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, to roll out the vaccine to newborns.’

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‘This decision came two years after the recommendation by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee to introduce the vaccine to the infant immunisation schedule.

Now from the first of October, all newborns will receive the life-saving vaccine free of charge.’However, despite promises to introduce a catchup programme, there is still no timeline for this,’ Ms Erskine said.

‘If Ireland were to follow the NHS approach in the UK, all children under two years of age would be offered the vaccine free of charge.

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‘However, when it comes to meningitis B, children under the age of five and teens are actually most at risk. Last year, 58% of cases in Ireland occurred in children under five, while eight out of ten cases occurred in young people under nineteen years of age.

MummyPages is urging Health Minister Simon Harris to make provisions for the vaccine to be made available for free to all children under 18 years of age.

‘If a coordinated catch-up programme for children under five years old is not introduced, worried parents will have to risk putting their families into debt in order to access the vaccine privately at a cost of €420 for babies and €280 for older children,’ she said.

Further information about the disease can be found at the Meningitis Research Foundation’s website: www.meningitis.org or by calling 1800 41 33 44.